What Happens During Staging

This page attempts to provide you with quick, short answers to the most common questions about staging. Please feel free to add anything else you feel can briefly help one's understanding and is pertinent to staging.

What is staging?
Staging is the initial orientation and meeting of all the members of your country's Peace Corps training group that will be meeting with you. You will arrive in a major US city and be placed with a roommate, check in, meet your fellow volunteers, and spend 2-3 days being briefed about what is to come and about your country.

How long is staging?
Staging typically lasts for 2-3 days. All day.

How do I get to staging?
After accepting your invitation, you will be sent a "staging kit" which provides information about your departure. You should call SATO Travel, the Peace Corps travel company, immediately to make travel arrangements. The Peace Corps provides your flight, but you yourself must make the actual arrangements through SATO.

Where is staging?
The location of your stage depends on which country you go to. Typically, the stage cities are Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco, and Atlanta. You can find a spreadsheet indicating what countries stage where on the Staging Cities page.

What do we do during staging? Its purpose?
This is a great time to meet and start getting to know the other volunteers that you will be serving with. During the day you watch movies about different volunteer’s experiences, talk about cultural differences and safety, and do basic teambuilding activities. Peace Corps officials will teach the history of the PC, its theory on development, and its policies and safety concerns for trainees and Volunteers.

Where do we stay during staging?
During staging, the Peace Corps will put you up at a hotel and you'll more than likely have a roommate. You'll have a small staging allowance to for food or any last minute items (such as toiletries).

What happens after staging?
When staging is completed, your group will be taken to the airport (quite often excruciatingly early!). You will then fly out to your designated Peace Corps country. The vast majority of the time, the group is not accompanied by any Peace Corps staff.